Because it saves money? Not necessarily. Because it tastes better? Only if it turns out not to taste or look like dog food or some odd science experiment. I've been cooking for over 50 years now and I've served some spectacular meals and created some spectacular failures.
One of the earliest happened when I was in 5th grade. My parents entertained often and I liked to make desserts for the guests. My mother wasn't much of a dessert fan, so that was fine by her. One night they invited Joe and Geneva Gwatkins over for dinner. I decided to make brownies with mint icing. Joe and Geneva always had an over-sized glass bowl of candy on their coffee table, and I ate many a pound of chocolate at their house, so I thought putting icing on brownies was a swell idea.
I made the brownies from scratch and the batter tasted pretty good. Then I made the icing. I used a whole bottle of peppermint extract and the better part of a bottle of green food coloring. I arranged the iced brownies on a lovely old pressed glass dish. They looked like they belonged in a St. Patrick's Day Parade.
I ran off to spend the night with Sandra Lee, who lived across the street, wore Here's my Heart perfume on a puffy cotton-ball tucked inside her bra in between the falsies, owned all of Elvis Presley's 45s and had a real boyfriend.
But when I got home the next morning, I found most of the greenies left on the plate...lesson learned. Cooking is great, creative fun, but it's a good idea to taste what you cook before you serve it to your guests.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
GF Cornbread Dressing
The other thing that always comes to my mind at Thanksgiving is cornbread dressing. Not stuffing, because I don't stuff the turkey anymore. I don't even cook a turkey anymore. My son-in-law smokes a turkey that is simply to die for (and gluten free, of course). So I can make the southern in the pan, more like a souffle than a stuffing kind of dressing. And of course, now I make it gluten free. I also make it in a slow cooker, which frees up the oven for sweet potato casserole and homemade GF rolls.
GF Cornbread Dressing
Adapted to be GF from Southern Living 11/02
Cornbread:
1/4 c. butter
3 c. cornmeal
1 c. GF flour
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
3 large eggs
3 c. buttermilk
2 T bacon grease or cooking oil.
Dressing:
1 1/2 c. GF bread crumbs
1/4 c. butter
2 c. diced celery
1 1/2 c. diced onion
6 T fresh sage, minced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 to 2 1/2 c. rich turkey stock or chicken broth
2 t or more black pepper
For the cornbread:
Note: can be made up to a week in advance. Cornbread freezes well.
Mix cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda together. Melt butter and add it to 3 c. buttermilk. Add buttermilk mixture and beaten eggs to dry ingredients. Stir until no longer lumpy. Heat 1-2 T bacon grease or oil in a 10” cast iron skillet in the oven until it sizzles. Pour batter into skillet and bake at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Serve up to 1/2 of the cornbread for dinner and save the rest. If you make this ahead of time, you can have cornbread and spicy collards for dinner that evening. Leave the rest of the cornbread in a cold oven overnight so that it can dry out. Then freeze until ready to use in the dressing.
For the dressing:
Crumble corn bread and mix with bread or biscuit crumbs in a large bowl. Sauté the onions and celery in butter until soft. Add sage and sauté one more minute. Add to cornbread mixture. Add eggs, beaten, 2 cups of the turkey stock and the black pepper. Mix gently. Cook in a 6 qt. slow cooker on high heat for 2 hours. You may want to add an additional 1/2 cup of stock if the dressing gets too dry during the cooking process. Pour it over the top of the dressing top, though, don’t stir it in.
GF Cornbread Dressing
Adapted to be GF from Southern Living 11/02
Cornbread:
1/4 c. butter
3 c. cornmeal
1 c. GF flour
2 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
3 large eggs
3 c. buttermilk
2 T bacon grease or cooking oil.
Dressing:
1 1/2 c. GF bread crumbs
1/4 c. butter
2 c. diced celery
1 1/2 c. diced onion
6 T fresh sage, minced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 to 2 1/2 c. rich turkey stock or chicken broth
2 t or more black pepper
For the cornbread:
Note: can be made up to a week in advance. Cornbread freezes well.
Mix cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda together. Melt butter and add it to 3 c. buttermilk. Add buttermilk mixture and beaten eggs to dry ingredients. Stir until no longer lumpy. Heat 1-2 T bacon grease or oil in a 10” cast iron skillet in the oven until it sizzles. Pour batter into skillet and bake at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Serve up to 1/2 of the cornbread for dinner and save the rest. If you make this ahead of time, you can have cornbread and spicy collards for dinner that evening. Leave the rest of the cornbread in a cold oven overnight so that it can dry out. Then freeze until ready to use in the dressing.
For the dressing:
Crumble corn bread and mix with bread or biscuit crumbs in a large bowl. Sauté the onions and celery in butter until soft. Add sage and sauté one more minute. Add to cornbread mixture. Add eggs, beaten, 2 cups of the turkey stock and the black pepper. Mix gently. Cook in a 6 qt. slow cooker on high heat for 2 hours. You may want to add an additional 1/2 cup of stock if the dressing gets too dry during the cooking process. Pour it over the top of the dressing top, though, don’t stir it in.
Let's start with Thanksgiving
When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of pie. How original.
Mama always made two pies at Thanksgiving: a pumpkin pie for my Dad and me and a pecan pie for her. Mama grew up in Louisiana, next door to an orphanage. One of her favorite childhood memories was helping the orphans pick the pecans that fell from the trees surrounding the orphanage. She would help bag up the pecans so the orphanage could sell them to the neighbors at Thanksgiving. It was the 1930's version of selling Sally Foster gift wrap, I suppose, but closer to real work and certainly more in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.
As a result, Mama had a soulful love of pecans. So even though my Dad (a New Yorker) couldn't even pronounce the word pecan correctly (he said pea-can), even though he thought pumpkin pie was the best thing since baseball and even though neither he nor I would touch pecan pie, we always had one. Mama used the recipe on the back of the Dark Karo Syrup bottle...not the very same recipe on the back of the pale, creepy Light Karo Syrup bottle.
But it was the crust that ruled the day. This was a particularly sensitive issue because my Dad's mother was the best pie maker in America. Her crusts were always perfect. Mama, not so much. She was a great cook, mind you, just not much of a baker. She didn't even like to eat dessert. Unless, of course, it had lots of pecans.
For 11 months out of the year, just like Mama, I don't make pies. The filling is a snap. It's the crust that's the challenge. Regular old pie crust, made with hard winter wheat flour and shortening has always been hit or miss for me. I've also tried prepared crusts, frozen crusts, sticks of dried out dough in a box that you just added water to crusts, graham cracker crusts, pat-in-the pan crusts, nothing was sure-fire. Sometimes my pie crusts would be flaky, buttery rich and not too brown around the edges. Other times they stuck to the pan, or they were so tough you had to chisel them out with a hammer and a flat-head screw driver. Sometimes they were so heavy you could use them to prop open the front door. Some of my worst culinary moments have involved pie.
So this year, I bought some GF pie crusts from Whole Foods (not the store brand, oh no, I had to try a more expensive private brand). I had the good sense to try one of these rarefied discs before I actually got down to making the real Thanksgiving pies. Yikes. Paper towels would have been more tasty, communion wafers would have been more flaky.
So, I set off on a quest to find and test drive some GF pie crust recipes by searching the web. I knew the Gluten Free Pantry made a pretty decent pie crust mix, but I wanted to make something from scratch. The stars must have been aligned that night because the first recipe I tried turned out to be just about as good as anything I've ever made, even using a traditional wheat-based recipe.
Here's the recipe. Enjoy.
Gluten Free Pastry Crust for a double crust pie or two single crust pies
• 1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour mix (2 parts white rice flour, 2/3 of a part potato starch, 1/3 of a part tapioca flour)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 stick frozen butter
• 1 tsp xantham gum
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 large egg beaten
• 2 large sheets of parchment paper or waxed paper
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Grate the still-frozen butter into the dry ingredients using the large holes on your box grater. What? You don't have a box grater. We need to talk.
Then blend with a pastry cutter or two knives until the butter is well-distributed, but the mixture is still coarse.
Beat the egg in a small cup, add the vanilla, and then use your hands to mix the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Work the dough just until it starts to form a ball. If it won't stick together, add a scant drizzle of water, and try again.
Note: I had to use a good bit of water, a drizzle at a time, to make it work.
Divide the dough into two balls, wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight. While the dough is chilling, mix up the filling(s).
Lightly flour a big sheet of parchment paper. Roll out the crust just as you would for a traditional pie crust recipe. Check periodically as you roll, making sure the dough isn't sticking to the paper. Add a bit more flour to the rolling pin and the parchment paper if necessary.
When the dough is the right size for your pie pan, roll it up half-way onto your rolling pin, then unroll it into the pie pan. Alternatively, you can invert the pie pan on top of the crust and flip the crust into the pan. If you're lucky it will invert perfectly, but if you get a tear, don’t worry. You can easily piece it back together with your hands.
For a pumpkin or pecan pie, proceed using your favorite recipe. The Dark Karo Syrup recipe for pecan pie or the Libby's solid pack pumpkin pie recipe for a pumpkin pie work just fine for me, just like they did for my mother.
If you are making a fruit pie instead of a pumpkin or pecan pie, egg wash the bottom, and add your fruit filling. Repeat the parchment rolling with the second half of the dough and fit it on top of the fruit filling, crimping to seal. Using a small, sharp knife, cut three or four small slits into the top crust, decorative or otherwise, to let the stem vent from the pie while it’s cooking.
Bake as you would for any pie, checking the crust rim after 15 minutes of baking. If the crust browns too quickly, cut a foil collar for the pie and add it now.
Mama always made two pies at Thanksgiving: a pumpkin pie for my Dad and me and a pecan pie for her. Mama grew up in Louisiana, next door to an orphanage. One of her favorite childhood memories was helping the orphans pick the pecans that fell from the trees surrounding the orphanage. She would help bag up the pecans so the orphanage could sell them to the neighbors at Thanksgiving. It was the 1930's version of selling Sally Foster gift wrap, I suppose, but closer to real work and certainly more in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.
As a result, Mama had a soulful love of pecans. So even though my Dad (a New Yorker) couldn't even pronounce the word pecan correctly (he said pea-can), even though he thought pumpkin pie was the best thing since baseball and even though neither he nor I would touch pecan pie, we always had one. Mama used the recipe on the back of the Dark Karo Syrup bottle...not the very same recipe on the back of the pale, creepy Light Karo Syrup bottle.
But it was the crust that ruled the day. This was a particularly sensitive issue because my Dad's mother was the best pie maker in America. Her crusts were always perfect. Mama, not so much. She was a great cook, mind you, just not much of a baker. She didn't even like to eat dessert. Unless, of course, it had lots of pecans.
For 11 months out of the year, just like Mama, I don't make pies. The filling is a snap. It's the crust that's the challenge. Regular old pie crust, made with hard winter wheat flour and shortening has always been hit or miss for me. I've also tried prepared crusts, frozen crusts, sticks of dried out dough in a box that you just added water to crusts, graham cracker crusts, pat-in-the pan crusts, nothing was sure-fire. Sometimes my pie crusts would be flaky, buttery rich and not too brown around the edges. Other times they stuck to the pan, or they were so tough you had to chisel them out with a hammer and a flat-head screw driver. Sometimes they were so heavy you could use them to prop open the front door. Some of my worst culinary moments have involved pie.
So this year, I bought some GF pie crusts from Whole Foods (not the store brand, oh no, I had to try a more expensive private brand). I had the good sense to try one of these rarefied discs before I actually got down to making the real Thanksgiving pies. Yikes. Paper towels would have been more tasty, communion wafers would have been more flaky.
So, I set off on a quest to find and test drive some GF pie crust recipes by searching the web. I knew the Gluten Free Pantry made a pretty decent pie crust mix, but I wanted to make something from scratch. The stars must have been aligned that night because the first recipe I tried turned out to be just about as good as anything I've ever made, even using a traditional wheat-based recipe.
Here's the recipe. Enjoy.
Gluten Free Pastry Crust for a double crust pie or two single crust pies
• 1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour mix (2 parts white rice flour, 2/3 of a part potato starch, 1/3 of a part tapioca flour)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 stick frozen butter
• 1 tsp xantham gum
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 large egg beaten
• 2 large sheets of parchment paper or waxed paper
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Grate the still-frozen butter into the dry ingredients using the large holes on your box grater. What? You don't have a box grater. We need to talk.
Then blend with a pastry cutter or two knives until the butter is well-distributed, but the mixture is still coarse.
Beat the egg in a small cup, add the vanilla, and then use your hands to mix the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Work the dough just until it starts to form a ball. If it won't stick together, add a scant drizzle of water, and try again.
Note: I had to use a good bit of water, a drizzle at a time, to make it work.
Divide the dough into two balls, wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight. While the dough is chilling, mix up the filling(s).
Lightly flour a big sheet of parchment paper. Roll out the crust just as you would for a traditional pie crust recipe. Check periodically as you roll, making sure the dough isn't sticking to the paper. Add a bit more flour to the rolling pin and the parchment paper if necessary.
When the dough is the right size for your pie pan, roll it up half-way onto your rolling pin, then unroll it into the pie pan. Alternatively, you can invert the pie pan on top of the crust and flip the crust into the pan. If you're lucky it will invert perfectly, but if you get a tear, don’t worry. You can easily piece it back together with your hands.
For a pumpkin or pecan pie, proceed using your favorite recipe. The Dark Karo Syrup recipe for pecan pie or the Libby's solid pack pumpkin pie recipe for a pumpkin pie work just fine for me, just like they did for my mother.
If you are making a fruit pie instead of a pumpkin or pecan pie, egg wash the bottom, and add your fruit filling. Repeat the parchment rolling with the second half of the dough and fit it on top of the fruit filling, crimping to seal. Using a small, sharp knife, cut three or four small slits into the top crust, decorative or otherwise, to let the stem vent from the pie while it’s cooking.
Bake as you would for any pie, checking the crust rim after 15 minutes of baking. If the crust browns too quickly, cut a foil collar for the pie and add it now.
In the beginning...
In the beginning there was the diagnosis: no more gluten, dairy, or soy. Simple enough if you don't like to cook or bake or feed your family the best homemade food. Simple enough if you eat to live rather than live to eat. Simple enough if you never buy processed foods, never crave the perfect pasta, and would rather stick a pencil in your eye than bake a loaf of bread.
I know people like this. I really do. I'm not one of them. No, I'm the mother, and now the grandmother, who loves to cook, feed the family, bake Christmas cookies, order out a pizza on Friday night, or drown in a good bowl of pasta every once in a while.
I wore (literally) my love of all things gluten proudly...until the diagnosis, which was the beginning of a whole new identity: the gluten free glamma. Because cooking gluten free can be glamourous, even if one is a 63 year old grandmother.
So now that I have my GF chops, I'm going to blog about my gluten-free experiments in the kitchen. The succeses as well as the failures.
I know people like this. I really do. I'm not one of them. No, I'm the mother, and now the grandmother, who loves to cook, feed the family, bake Christmas cookies, order out a pizza on Friday night, or drown in a good bowl of pasta every once in a while.
I wore (literally) my love of all things gluten proudly...until the diagnosis, which was the beginning of a whole new identity: the gluten free glamma. Because cooking gluten free can be glamourous, even if one is a 63 year old grandmother.
So now that I have my GF chops, I'm going to blog about my gluten-free experiments in the kitchen. The succeses as well as the failures.
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